Bryan Redpath: Thrilling Cardiff win can kick-start season

07:48, 17 October 2012

ByManchester Evening News

It goes without saying just what a huge relief our 34-33 Heineken Cup win against Cardiff was on Sunday and my hope is registering that first victory of the campaign will help to really kick-start and reinvigorate our season.

It goes without saying just what a huge relief our 34-33 Heineken Cup win against Cardiff was on Sunday and my hope is registering that first victory of the campaign will help to really kick-start and reinvigorate our season.

As everyone knows, it had been a really tough month-and-a-half for everyone at the club leading up to the match after losing all of our first six league games.

Both chief executive Steve Diamond and myself had taken a lot of stick and flak and, quite rightly so in many ways, but hopefully the Cardiff win and performance means we can turn the corner and go to Montpellier next weekend and Worcester the week after with confidence as they are two huge games for us.

Obviously at 27-12 down against Cardiff with 50 minutes gone on Sunday, I was starting to think again that our fortunes hadn’t changed.

We actually created two great chances in the first 25 minutes but then in the next 15 minutes we conceded three soft tries and you tend to think ‘Geez, We’ve been here before.’At half-time we knew that if we cut a couple of the errors down and still believed in ourselves and attacked with conviction, then we would get an opportunity.

And it’s huge credit to the players that they went out and turned it around. At half-time I said to them we were staring down the barrel of a gun and we had to go out there and win it. We had to go out with the right mindset to try and win it and credit to them all as that’s exactly what they did.

A lot of the plaudits and headlines went to Danny Cipriani for his impact after coming on, scoring a try and setting up another, and that was more than deserved.

Our starting half-backs, Nathan Fowles and Nick Macleod, had done pretty well again but it just hadn’t gone for them so Danny and Cillian Willis coming on helped speed us up a little bit and their experience was also really crucial.

As regards Danny, it was great to see him perform like that and, hopefully, it opens up the door for some consistent performances from everyone and will also act as a huge confidence boost.

We all know Danny is very good as an attacker. But there are other aspects to his game and he put in three great kicks for field position and also made all his tackles in the second half when he needed to.Kevin Sinfield needs a minder - Maurice Bamford

For me, those two elements were just as important as his attacking game as his attacking game has never been in question.

Hopefully, both Danny and the team can kick on from here and we can all look upward and, hopefully, we can carry that confidence forward. With everyone around Danny understanding him then there is no doubt we can create tries.

From a club perspective, the significance of getting that first win on the board is huge.

Both Leicester chief Richard Cockerill and Exeter boss Rob Baxter have said before that the scoreline didn’t reflect the actual game when we played their clubs but, sadly, we’ve been on the wrong end of results.

However, the players never stopped believing in themselves on Sunday.

They created opportunities and took them and I’m delighted for every player and staff member.

I was genuinely happy for all of them. They have had their share of tough times since the start of September and they deserved a good pat on the back for their efforts on Sunday.

Despite the poor run, our spirit has never wavered and even after coming off on Sunday Nick Macleod gave Rob Miller - who took over goal-kicking duties - a bit of advice about keeping his head down and kicking straight. He missed the first one and then nailed the next two and that sums up what we’re about.

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